World Track Championships - CM

Melbourne, Australia, May 26-30, 2004

Event program and results    Qualifying    First round    Repechages   Second round     Quarter Finals    Semi Finals    Finals

Men's Sprint

In the qualifying for the men's sprint - where the big men let fly for 200 metres - two riders posted exactly the same time that was down to the thousandth of a second.

First, Ahmed Lopez (Cuba) posted a 10.624 for the flying 200 metres, but then Hiroyuki Inagaki (Japan) posted exactly the same time. Under the rules, only the fastest 18 out of 27 entrants could progress to the actual sprint rounds, and here's the catch, Lopez qualified in 18th spot, so the Japanese rider qualified in 19th, yet they had the same time. What to do? Draw the short straw, basically, it's in the rules. Yes, when there's an occurrence like this, it comes down to a game of chance.

In the first round, the sprinters got to stretch their legs against each other and the big man of world sprinting showed he was on the way back from a knee injury and pre-race 'flu.

The results from the first hit-out meant the second round (see start list) would involve two of the local heroes riding off against each other